Solitary
by anonfanficaccount
Summary: Stuck in her cell with Leoben on New Caprica, Starbuck remembers the things she regrets and tries to escape.


" _You know what your problem is Starbuck?"_

" _Yes Sir. Bad attitude. Sir."_

" _Your other problem, Thrace. You're too good."_

" _Sir?"_

" _You pull off some vomit-inducing move. You're in control. You know how the Viper feels, the tiny difference that will turn a crash into a fly-by. You see the changes, small and big, as quickly as the Viper can move. You listen to that feeling in your gut, saying go on, go on, push a little harder, risk a little more. So, you do these head-spinning stunts that only you could pull off, and laugh that no-one else can, and go drink yourself into oblivion, safe in the knowledge that your skills as a pilot will pull you out of the fire every single frakking time._

 _But you know what Starbuck? Someday you'll miss something. You'll have a killer hangover, and you'll try one of your super-duper-special Starbuck moves like you always do, and you'll miss something. A cylon, another pilot, the weather, a bird, or you'll just pull up too late, and that'll be that. We'll be cleaning bits of you out of your cockpit for weeks._

 _I frakking hate cleaning Thrace. Don't make me clean."_

* * *

The room was cold and grey and silent. Blue tinged daylight stretched its long fingers across the floor, steadily closer to where Starbuck sat, on the floor next to the bed. The rays touched her expressionless face. She reached up to cover her eyes but suddenly convulsed, agony playing across her features.

She gingerly tried to stand, revealing bandages soaked with blood around her torso. She used the bedside table as a crutch to leverage herself upright.

First step. She let go, wobbled, but managed to stay upright. Second step. She slid her right foot a few inches forward and tested it, slowly shifting her weight. It gave way. She slammed to the ground. A vicious smack rang out as her chin rebounded off the hardwood floor.

"Frak!" She lay still, listening.

Nothing.

She dragged her aching body towards the bedside table, leaving a small smear of blood on the floor. Her hands scrabbled to find something to cling on to and found it. Blood saturated her bandages, as she used the bedside lamp to prise herself upwards. It slid off the table, and again, she sprawled across the carpet.

Tears slid silently down her face, as she rolled on to her back and stared resolutely at the tiled ceiling. Her eyes blinked and lost focus, and finally closed into blackness.

* * *

By the time the Cylon entered the room, the sun had wound all the way around it and begun to fade. Carefully, gently, he gathered her up from the floor. Her head, with nothing to support it, flopped backwards over his arm.

He lay her softly back on the bed; her body was at a strange angle, her right arm trapped under her side. He righted her as best he could, and examined the bandages, face twisted in concern.

Tenderly, he pushed the hair from her face. He pulled her arm towards him and dug around in the little box of supplies he had brought with him. A disinfectant wipe, a syringe. As the needle went in, she began to make noises of protest, started to wake up.

"It's okay Kara, I'm here," he murmured. As the drugs did their job, her face softened and she slid back into unconsciousness. He began the slow, difficult business of changing her bandages.

* * *

Starbuck awoke to the sound of sizzling and the smell of frying meat. Sitting on the bedside table was a small glass of water, two large tablets and a little note – hand written, scrawled, messy, almost illegible - "painkillers".

She popped them in her mouth, drained the glass of water and dropped it to the floor. It thudded but didn't break. The noises outside ceased for a moment. She closed her eyes, expression unreadable. The noises resumed.

She threw the glass, full force at the wall beside the bed. Again, it fell unharmed to the floor. "Frak."

A sandy blonde head peered around the door. "Good morning Kara."

"Don't call me that."

"Breakfast is ready."

"Where am I?"

He didn't answer, just went to her and hauled her out of the bed. She let him. As he brought her to her feet, she wobbled and he steadied her. She smiled. He smiled back.

The expression froze on his face as the heavy ceramic lamp from the bedside table shattered cross the back of his head. She dropped the remains, picked up a large jagged piece and thrust it towards his stomach, but the emptiness in his eyes told her there was no point. He was already dead.

A flicker of a true smile played across her features; she leant against the wall and caught her breath. Her face hardened, and slowly, wincing as she went, she made her way out the door. The strips of meat he'd been cooking had already begun to stick to the bottom of the pan, and the smell of burning permeated the room.

She looked up, and stopped, horrified recognition in her eyes. They jumped from the familiar staircase to the equally familiar windows. There were differences; the view wasn't the same and it was a hell of a lot more respectable than her apartment on Caprica. "Motherfrakking cylons."

She let go of the wall and stumbled the few feet to the stairs, controlling her fall onto the bottom step. One step at a time, she dragged herself upwards. She moved quicker, as though she could taste the freedom at the top.

One final effort – the last step - caused her to cry out, but she clambered on knees and elbows across the landing.

She tried the door handle. It turned. It didn't open. She tried again, desperately hanging all her weight from it.

She looked for a keyhole, but there was none – then she noticed it; the keypad. It was too high for her to reach without standing. A resigned hopelessness flickered across her face. She turned, back to the wall, braced against it. She pushed up from her knees, grunting in exertion. Finally, upright enough to see it, six buttons looked slightly more worn than the others. She began to methodically press them.

One, three, four, five, seven, nine.

One, three, four, five, nine, seven.

One, three, four, nine, five, seven.

One, three, nine, four, five, seven.

One, nine, three, four, five, seven.

Nine, one, three, four, five, seven.

Each button made a different sound. She was still there hours later when Leoben returned.

* * *

The living room was pitch black – New Caprica didn't have a moon to light the night. Starbuck stood and, wincing, picked her way carefully across the room, ending up by the light switch. She began to flick it on and off.

Three short, three long, three short. Pause.

Three short, three long, three short. Pause.

Three short, three long, three short. Pause.

Three short, three long, three short. Pause.

There was a soft thud. She stopped. The door inched open, and light flooded out from the bedroom. A bleary head appeared. "No one is coming for you Kara. Go back to sleep."

* * *

"I brought you something. Open it," Leoben said, resigned, handing Starbuck a small wooden box.

She opened it, and a reluctant smile played across her face. It was filled to the brim with high-quality paints and brushes.

"I also got you this." He pulled a bottle of whiskey from his bag and offered it to her.

"I don't want that."

Leoben shrugged, but he couldn't hide the disappointment in his eyes.

* * *

 _A small blond child sat, impassive, as mother screamed at father. It wasn't the first time, nor the worst, but it would be the last._

 _They seemed to have forgotten her, and that was the way she preferred it._

" _Are you finished?" he said. Mother didn't look. She slumped onto the chair, pulled out her tobacco and began to roll a cigarette. Her hands shook._

" _I'm going to walk out that door. And you can look at it every day and know that I am never going to come back through it."_

 _Mother flicked open her lighter. Father sighed, turned away, walked out the door. Kara couldn't do it._ _ **She couldn't watch him leave again, not this time.**_ _ **She leapt up, ran after him, like she always should have. He was outside when she reached him.**_

" _ **Daddy?" It was quiet, amongst the sounds of the street, but he heard her. He turned back, smiled a little sadly and walked towards her. He knelt, arms open, and she ran into them.**_

 _ **He walked down the street, Kara cradled in his arms, head on his shoulder. Safe.**_

 _ **They never looked back.**_

* * *

Leoben opened the door and was immediately struck by the huge painting on the wall before him. A crude rendition of an ogre – clearly meant to be him, eating a baby with one hand, holding down a screaming woman with the other. Around him, the twelve colonies blazed. His feet were trampling a city skyline to rubble.

He looked down. Starbuck lay sprawled half on the couch. The bottle of whiskey, three-quarters empty, was on its side next to her.

He went to her side and shook her gently. "It's pretty good," he told her when she started to stir.

"Hrm?"

It's wasn't so much a question as a complaint, but he answered it anyway. "The painting."

"What painting?" she asked, coming into consciousness.

He gestured at it in response. She clawed her way up and peered over the back of the couch. She made a sound somewhere between a snigger and a snort.

* * *

Leoben hit the play button. The first tinkling notes sounded, and Starbuck sat bolt upright. "What is this? Where did you get it?" Her tone was fierce, accusatory.

"There were a lot of things left behind on the colonies." He handed her a disc case labelled 'Dreilide Thrace Live'. She looked at it, and her shoulders softened.

"I don't have this." The music swelled and ebbed, now loud, now delicate, sad and hungry and hopeful.

"Turn it off," she said quietly. Leoben remained motionless, apparently lost in thought, gazing out of the window.

"I said turn it off!" Her voice cracked, betraying her emotion. Leoben started, then turned and did as she asked.

The silence was immediate and absolute. Starbuck slumped backwards, head bent low. Leoben came to kneel in front of her, took her hands in his and pushed the strands of hair away from her face.

"Children are born to replace their parents Kara. They cannot reach their full potential until their parents have died."

She didn't meet his gaze, and he sighed, stood up and went back to the window.

"Is that why you did it?" She stared at her hands clasped in front of her. "Is that why the Cylons nuked the colonies?"

"We were younger then." He didn't take his eyes off the view.

"Do you regret it?"

* * *

" _So, how'd I do?" he asked, as soon as he pulled off his helmet._

 _There was none of the excited apprehension that she'd seen in the other cadets – there was real fear in Zak's eyes. He must know. She almost couldn't bring herself to say it. She waited for him to descend the stairs and stand to attention in front of her._

 _ **For the sake of three words, she had cost him his life once before. Not this time. Her voice caught in her throat as she said "You – um, you failed Zak."**_

 _ **She thought they'd both been prepared for it, but his reaction devastated her nonetheless. Shock, anger, fear, shame..**_

" _ **If I'd been better prepared. I didn't learn -"**_

" _ **You're blaming me?" Kara snapped.**_

 _ **He closed his eyes, as though trying to hide the disappointment. "Maybe..." He let it hang, unfinished.**_

" _ **Godsdammit Zak, this was a mistake."**_

 _ **He nodded slowly, then clicked his heels together. "Yes sir. Thank you, sir. Am I dismissed sir?"**_

" _ **It's not the end of the world Zak, there's other things you can do," she called after his rapidly disappearing back.**_

* * *

Starbuck was sitting on the couch when he came in. She didn't look at him, but said, "Laila."

"Hrm?" he answered distracted – he was reading some sheets of paper as he walked down the stairs.

"I've been trying to remember that name since you brought me here. Laila Aslam."

"Is that all you do all day when I'm not here? Sit on the couch?"

She continued speaking, as though she hadn't heard what he said. "There was this girl in my school on Picon, a few years younger than me, Laila Aslam. Disappeared on holidays with her family on Virgon. It was all over the news for weeks."

Now she looked at him, a spark of insanity in her green eyes. "They found her. Eight years later. The guy who'd done it, his wife had died having a miscarriage, and he'd never quite believed that the baby had died too. When he saw Laila's bright blue eyes, just like his wife's, he knew she was his baby."

Leoben sat on the couch next to her, and she turned to face him.

"She fought every second she was there. She tried to escape over and over, but he held on to her, thinking one day she'd see it, and she'd love him as much as he loved her."

"That isn't what this is," he said quietly.

"No. It's not. You're a frakking machine."

"Kara..."

"What do you want from me? Because I DON'T UNDERSTAND." She turned and angled herself above him, spread her legs and straddled his lap. "Do you want to frak?" she demanded, grinding into him. "Is that it? Hurt me? Torture me? Drive me insane?"

"Stop it."

"Oh, no, I forgot! You want me to complete my destiny. What is it? Save humanity? Destroy the cylons? Bake frakking birthday cakes? How do you expect me to do that? Whatever it is, I might as well be dead, 'cause I can't do frak-all about my destiny in here. See, what I think... I think you want to come off as this enlightened being, interpreting the word of God, but you're just scared and confused, scrabbling around in the dark with the rest of us."

He abruptly pushed her off his lap and walked to the staircase, and she started to laugh emptily. He was almost running now, clearly desperate to be anywhere but in this room. "Come back. Please. Maybe tonight's the night," she called after him, then waited quietly, listening.

Eight buttons on the keypad beeped as he fled out the door. She raced after him, up the stairs and punched a series of numbers into the keypad. The third one sounded wrong. She tried again. There was a click. She turned the handle, and the door opened.

* * *

"Starbuck?! Hey! It's Starbuck!"

The Cylons' metal claws dug into Starbuck's shoulders as they dragged her down the long corridor. Faces appeared behind tiny caged windows.

"Stay strong Starbuck!"

"Fight 'em till you can't."

Her bare feet scraped along the concrete floor. The friction made them warm, and raw, and wet. She flinched at each shout of encouragement, each declaration of support. Someone started thumping on their cell door. Others joined. Momentum built.

With a fierce metallic whir, one the Cylon's arms extended into a gun. In the process, it let go of her arm, and she took her chance.

She whipped round, catching the other off guard, slipping through its long smooth fingers. Desperation, fear and a little bit of hope.

The excitement of the others had reached fever pitch. She passed them by without even glancing in their direction, but stopped abruptly at the last face on the row.

Recognisable, but so very different. A gaping hole where there should be an eye. It was red, and seething, and encircled in a ring of crusted yellow pus. He stood still, only able to hear the chaos, but that look, that look said more than all the rest. Someone understood.

It was too late.

A metal chest crushed into her side, and the centurion pinned her to the floor. She smiled.

* * *

Starbuck paced frenetically, a wild animal caught in a cage. A tattered book, pages of incomprehensible notes spilling out of all sides, lay open in her hands.

"Lords,"she muttered under her breath, "son of Cronus."

Back and forth. Her eyes scanned the pages. She scribbled notes. Hours passed.

A noise came from upstairs.

"You're back," she said. She didn't look up. "Listen to this. 'Behold, the day of the Gods is coming. While people are saying, "peace and safety," destruction will come on them suddenly, and they will not escape. The city shall be taken, the houses rifled, and the women ravished. Half of the city shall go into captivity.'"

Leoben descended the stairs apprehensively, as though waiting for her to strike. She tore her gaze from the pages. He dolefully met her eye, and she stopped abruptly. "What happened? That explosion earlier?"

"Read the next verse."

"'Then the Lords will go forth and fight against those who would destroy their people, as they fought in the time of reckoning.' The resistance?"

Leoben looked resigned. He nodded slowly. "Suicide bombing at the NCP graduation."

He walked past her on his way to the kitchen. She thrust an arm out in front of him, papers clasped in her fist. "Look!"

He pushed it out of the way, and she stumbled. Papers fluttered to the floor. She scrabbled around and pulled one from the heap.

"'This is how you will know the coming of the end: Humanity will create its own destruction. They have dealt treacherously with the Lords, for they have begotten pagan children.'" Her voice had become shrill and desperate.

"'Now a single day shall devour them and their heritage. The heavens will disappear with a roar; the elements will be destroyed by fire, and the lands will be laid bare. On its final day humanity will end and be saved'." She was shaking uncontrollably. "I don't get it. It doesn't make sense; I don't understand-"

"You're not supposed to yet," Leoben soothed, gently taking the paper from her and discarding it before pulling her into a hug.

* * *

"Ninety six, ninety seven, ninety eight, ninety nine, one hundred." She finished the set of push ups as her arms gave way underneath her. She lifted her sweat-soaked tank top over her head, and examined her bandages. They were clean. She hadn't reopened the wound.

With a hint of a smile on her face, she hooked her feet under the couch, linked her fingers behind her head and pulled herself upwards with her stomach muscles, letting out the smallest whimper of pain.

"One," she paused for a breath before lying backwards until she almost touched the floor, then repeated the motion. "Two... three... four... frak, ow... six... seven..."

* * *

 _She lay in her rack. Listening to the hum of the engines, feeling the constant vibrations of the Galactica. A giggle somewhere below her alerted to her to the fact that someone else was awake. Two someones in fact. She grimaced to herself – they thought they were getting away with it._

" _I should go," Dee whispered._

" _Stay."_

" _Okay." The giggles that followed were unmistakable, and Kara had no choice but to lie there and listen, or leave and alert them to the fact that she was awake._

 _As time passed and they made no signs of slowing down, she began to deeply regret her decision not to get out of there. She couldn't do it now; things were awkward enough between her and Lee already._

 _Almost inaudibly, Dualla moaned Lee's name. Unbidden, a flash from Colonial Day forced its way to the front of her mind._

 _She sat up in bed, heard Lee hiss "shush" at Dee, who was still giggling, swung her legs down and jumped to the floor, not wanting to waste time with the ladder. She went to her locker, dug around in it, pulled out a bottle of ambrosia and slammed it shut. She exited the room to the sound of groans and cursing from the rest of the senior officers, and even more muted giggling from Dee._

 _She stopped to take a big swig from the bottle,_ _ **and Lee almost crashed into her as he stumbled out the door, completely naked. One look was all it took for her to realize he'd come after her. Ignoring the voice telling herself that this wasn't what happened, this wasn't real, she slammed him against the wall, elbow to his throat.**_

 _ **Frak or fight? It was him that had said it, more than a year ago, and she wasn't sure what the answer was. Fortunately, Dream Lee obliged. He grabbed her around her lower back and pulled her towards him. The kiss was fuelled by... not passion, something deeper, more primal.**_

She felt that kiss.

* * *

"Look at me Kara."

Slowly Starbuck raised her gaze from her dinner and stared intently at Leoben. There was a wild look in her eye.

"You cannot complete your destiny distracted by someone else." He started to cut his steak. Starbuck watched his every move.

There was a long pause.

"I need a knife."

* * *

The small child lay in bed, still wide awake even though it was nearly midnight. Starbuck blinked away her own exhaustion. She'd been no older than Casey when her mother had broken her arm for acting up in a department store.

"Once upon a time, there was a warrior, and she was strong, but she always fought alone. One day, she met another warrior and together they helped save the people of the land from an attack by the evil... goblins. But the land was destroyed, and the people had to run away. The warrior and her friend fought the goblins together every day, to protect the people of the fl-land and they saved each other more times than they could count.

Finally, they came to a place where they could all live safely, and the warrior had to learn to stop fighting, but she didn't know how. And then the goblins found them again, and the warrior was captured."

Starbuck paused for a moment, then added quietly - "And she couldn't escape, no matter how hard she tried." Her voice caught and she stopped.

Casey screwed up her face. Her bottom lip started to tremble.

"You're right, that is kind of a sucky ending." Starbuck's face set into a grimace of a smile. "Okay, um, the warrior's friend finds her and he helps her escape and they kill all of the bad cy- goblins forever. The end."

* * *

Starbuck's head peeked around the door frame. Casey's small chest rose and fell regularly, her little fist clenched in her mouth. Starbuck gingerly shut the door, and padded across the carpet, collapsing on the couch.

The only sound was the ticking of the clock.

Time passed.

She gradually changed position until she was curled on her side on the soft cushions. Her shoulders shook noiselessly, tears streaming uncontrolled down her face. Sobbing, gasping, painful tears.

She was alone.

 **AN: Con crit is how I learn. I'd love a review if you've got time.**


End file.
